Lower Taxes Tapped a Beer Revolution

When Ford was president there were 50 breweries. Now, there are 2,300.

By

Tom Acitelli

May 1, 2013 6:55 p.m. ET

Today there are more than 2,300 breweries in the United States—where beer production is second only to China's—but it wasn't long ago that American beer was an international punch line. Embodied by yellowy lagers in aluminum cans, nearly all domestic beer was made by a handful of breweries like Miller and Anheuser-Busch. As recently as 35 years ago, there were fewer than 50 breweries in the whole country, and the fastest-growing type of American beer was light, which Miller introduced in 1975.